by K. B. Draper
“Weird,” I said.
“We all assumed she must have run away from a bad situation. There was a lot of that back then, I’d guess. If you’re curious, there’s some stuff in the attic of hers. We put it up there after my mom and dad passed. I haven’t looked at it in years. You know, now that I think about it, there’s something in there for you.”
“For me?”
“Yeah, Mom said we were to give it to you when you’re older. I remembered it when you went off to college, but didn’t think you’d want to lug around some family heirloom in the dorm. Then you and Danny started traveling around … and quite honestly, I just kind of forgot about it until now. I’ll pull it down later now that it looks like you’re settling down and you might actually have a place to put it.” He did the double eyebrow wiggle thing and I couldn’t help but smile along with him.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“No problem,” he checked his watch. “I better be getting back,” He waved for the check, adding his pie order to the bill. “Will you two help Mom get the things she needs for tonight?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Thank you. Thank you for lunch. And thank you for making me and your mother so dang happy.”
It brought a smile to my face, though I was wondering how happy he’d be once he heard why we were really here.
Chapter 6
“We’re agreed? You’ll talk to your family tonight?” Ashlyn asked, continuing our convo as she walked around to grab a grocery cart from the return bay that I’d parked alongside.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it might be too much.”
“How are you going to explain the angel you invited to dinner?”
“A Halloween costume.”
“It’s September.”
“I’ll blame the retail establishments that started putting Christmas out in October. It was bound to affect the holiday decorating cycles. Kind of like global warming. Cause and effect. Total civilian disruption.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Am I? Or am I the only sane one and all of you …” I pointed around the parking lot. “… are just figments of my imagination?”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Or does it make perfect sense?”
“You’re trying to distract me.”
“Maybe you’re trying to distract me?” I countered.
“You’re telling them. The end. And I’m done with this conversation.”
“I knew you would say that. Oh, oooor maybe, figment, I made you say that?”
Ashlyn eye-rolled hard before freeing a cart with a quick jerk and heading toward the three-pack of double-glass doors.
“I love you,” I said in her wake.
“Or is this my world and I made you say that?” she replied.
I jogged a few steps to catch up with her, planting a kiss on her cheek. “I’m good with it either way.”
“Good or I would have to find a new figment, one that’s less ...”
“Amazing in bed?” I asked.
“No, not what I was thinking.”
“Hot? You were thinking–” I started, pulling us up short of the doors.
“What are you doing?” Ashlyn slapped at my hand holding the cart in place.
“How’s my hair? Have I gained any weight? Do I look okay?” I pulled at my jacket, patted my hair, then double-tapped my cheeks to bring up the color levels, before turning to Ashlyn for inspection. I got a blank stare. “It’s Walmart,” I explained, the duh part of that sentence an understood statement. More nothing. I sighed. “It’s the small-town equivalent of the Miss America pageant.”
Ashlyn sidestepped, moving both her and the cart out of the lane of traffic. “Lord, I can’t wait to hear this,” Ashlyn said, cautious amusement in her voice.
“I, being a BRBOer—Born, Raised and Busted Out’er,” I explained before she could ask, “will enter this establishment and be judged.” I held up a hand to tick off my points. “Lifestyle, career slash success,” I Vanna Whited myself, “and evening wear.”
Ashlyn’s eyes left me to track someone coming up behind me. “I take it this place still has the swimsuit competition?”
I turned and was rewarded with the sight of a blue-haired woman, who’d probably exited her seventies a decade ago. That wasn’t the odd thing; we’d see a baker’s dozen of them in the fruit and veggie area alone. But this particular one was wearing a leopard-skin tube top. Props to the almost garment for the effort it was exerting to do its job of covering the essentials, even though said essentials had settled somewhere just a smidge north of her bellybutton. “Holy swing low, sweet chariots,” I muttered.
Ashlyn punched me in the shoulder as she tried to stifle a laugh. “Knock it off.”
“That’s Ms. Colvin. She’s the old band teacher and deaf as …” I got distracted by a near nip slip when she fought to get her cart’s front end over the curb.
Ashlyn cleared her throat.
“… deaf as a doorstop.” Not my best work, but I was still recovering from nearly being traumatized. “Anyway, back to me. How do I look?”
Ashlyn gave me an up and down. Boots, jeans, vintage Janis Joplin T-shirt, topped with my go-to leather jacket. She smiled, then dropped it.
“What? Do we need to go home so I can change? I have a Joan Jett tee I think is clean. It might work better with my eyes. What do you think?” I turned to what had redirected my girl’s attention. A guy in blue jean overalls pushed past us. Let me clarify, only wearing blue jean overalls. We both watched him like he was a walking, talking, hairy car wreck that you absolutely didn’t want to see, but our eyes were Gorilla Glued to the scene. Oh wait, sorry, I need to print a retraction; he wasn’t just wearing overalls, he had a raccoon tail attached to his back-belt loop, so yeah. We watched the tail swish to-and-fro until it disappeared behind the automatic doors. Ashlyn’s attention came back to me. “I think you’ll be fine.”
And I was fine, totally fine, that was until I hit the frozen food aisle. Our cart was loaded down with tonight’s dinner needs plus a few extra apocalypse essentials: water, half the canned food aisle, power bars, peanut butter, first aid supplies, matches, powdered milk, pasta, jumbo box of Whoppers, etc. I was head down, double-checking our list when the scent of Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds invaded my nose holes. My guts clenched to include my bladder, which is saying something as it usually didn’t give two shits about things going on in my life whenever it decided to wake up and make itself known. “No, no, no, no, noooo …” I began to mutter.
“Addison Jo Mattox,” a woman’s voice said, magically making my name sound like something you stepped in and needed to scrape off the bottom of your shoe.
And speaking of shoes, two, four, six, eight, none of which I appreciate, they came into my downward view. “Fuck me,” I muttered.
“No thank you, I’m afraid I’d catch something,” the voice said with a tittering of laughs in its wake.
I sighed, reluctantly slid my phone into my pocket, and looked up to greet four of the previous Not So Fab Five cheer squad. “Like an actual orgasm?” I asked, waiting a beat for her glare to kick in. There it is. “Oh goody, the coven’s all here. Where’s the head witch? Still in the cave mixing up more glamour spells?”
“It’s nice to see you haven’t lost that quirky sense of humor.” Amber Ellis, second lieutenant of the coven, sneered as the other three lipstick-covered, brainless sock puppets copied the look. “I’m surprised that you’d show your face back here again.”
“In the freezer aisle of Walmart?” I asked with a double dose of confusion, ’cause I could, and it was annoying. I was going for annoying.
“In this town,” Amber clarified, ’cause she could, and she did so with the perfect stick-up-your-butt tone in her voice.
“Aww. Right. That would make more sense.”
“You surely aren’t planning to come to the class reunion tomorrow night?”
Class reunion? Umm yeah, tha
t would be a big “rather drop a blender in my tequila bath” no. That was until Amber’s bitch brow quirked, bitch hip jutted out, and bitch fist rested on it. Which next level pissed me off. And just in case you haven’t been paying attention, I do stupid things when I’m next-leveled pissed. Okay sure, even when I’m a smidge pissed. Or not pissed. Or it’s a Tuesday. Anywho—whatevs.
“Totally. Definitely, yep. Yes, that’s exactly why I’m here—the class reunion. I mean, why else would I be here? Now. At this particular moment in time if I wasn’t here for the class reunion? So going. For sure. Yes.” And apparently I also ramble.
“But we didn’t send—” Amber caught her near admission, flipped her hair, and replaced the beauty queen persona, “I’m glad you got the invite then.”
Ashlyn came up curbside, took a quick assessment of the scene, dropped her hunt and gatherings in the cart, then laid a calming hand on my lower back. “Invite to where?”
Amber gave Ashlyn a cool-eyed glare. “Suckered another one, I see.”
“Third one this week. Lucky you kept your distance, or you might have been number four.” Amber took an involuntary step back, about a hundred and thirty-seven shy of what I’d preferred her to take, but it gave me the few inches I needed to buzz her with the cart. “Tell your mistress, Lilith, I can’t wait to see her again.”
“I leave you for two minutes,” Ashlyn muttered when we were safely down the condiments aisle.
“Right? You really should know better by now.”
“Where are we going?”
“Back to hell,” I growled.
“To one of those come over for wine, so we can socially pressure you to buy a sixty-dollar candle parties?” she asked.
“Worse. Class reunion.”
Chapter 7
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I asked again, hitting the nineteen-foot point of the twenty-foot pace space that was Michael and Apoc’s current domain.
“No. I can glamour my wings so humans can’t see them. How do you think angels come down here and move around undetected?”
I spun on him. “Wait, what? You guys come down here and hang out?”
“Not all of us are guys,” Michael clarified, knowing that wasn’t the clarification I needed.
“Good to know,” I growled. “But not the most important part of this conversation, Mikey.” I resumed my pacing. “Let me get this straight,” I stopped, turned, and paced in the other direction. “Angels. You,” I pointed at him as I passed, “come down to earth, glamour your wings, and just hang out sipping mojitos?”
“I didn’t say anything about mojitos. But yes. And some choose to stay down here for years and live among you.”
Stop. Turn. “Angels. Here?”
“Yes.”
“Just chillin’ out?”
“Most come to understand, study, experience …”
“Play with the lab rats?” I asked.
“AJ,” Ashlyn admonished.
“Whatever. So how many of your homies are down here?”
Michael shrugged. “Thousands, tens of—”
“Tens of thousands of angels are here? Like right now, out there lollygagging about with their …” I waved at him. “… disappeary wings?” I stopped at the wall again, this time not electing to turn, but to bang my head against the 1970s oak-colored paneling. Done. I spun back. “So tell me this, pretty boy. Why did it not occur to you to glamour your wings before now? Like oh, I don’t know, all the times we ate out? Or say, when we went to the gas station? Or the time we took you to the mall to get you clothes or every single moment you pretty footed it around on this not so humany Earth?”
“I did,” Michael said, confused.
“No, you …” Now that I thought about it, I was the one that got all the strange looks when trying to explain the hot hunchback of Notre Dame.
“Did you think the trench coat was a sufficient disguise?”
“But I could see them,” I said.
“You all could see them. But you know who I am. What I am. I didn’t try and hide them from you.” He shrugged. “It’s nice not having to keep them hidden. I can, you know, just be me.”
“So the trench coat, you let me do that because?”
He smiled. “It amused me.”
I glared at him. “Okay then, and well-played.” I dropped my semi-less-annoyed ass into the chair that Ashlyn pointed to. “Any other fun party tricks you need to tell us about?”
Michael shrugged. “I mean, sure. We’re angels; we can do a lot of things.”
“Like?”
“We can wipe peoples’ memories.”
If I had been drinking something, I would have sprayed it. “Wipe. Memories.”
“Just short amounts, mainly to keep our identities safe if we don’t get our glamour up in time.”
“You. Can. Wipe. Peoples’. Memories,” I slow-peated.
“Just bits and pieces. Not completely,” Michael added.
I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. “Prove it,” I demanded.
“I—”
“Nope. Glamour up. Presto-change-o-disappear-o,” I waved at his wings.
Michael sighed. He stood, handing Apoc off to Six, who’d staked his claim on the second double bed in the room and was currently allowing Danny only an ass-size corner of it. Michael straightened, and I couldn’t help but notice that his very visible wings nearly scraped the ceiling of the small motel room, accentuating just how epically moronic my trench coat disguise had been.
I gave him a “get on with the show” prompt. And in a blink, nada. Nothing. Not a single charcoal feather in sight.
Ashlyn laid a hand across her chest. It better had been for the magic trick, not the incredibly normal human-looking dude standing before us. And by incredibly normal I mean next-level, slow molten lava just out of the volcano level hot dude. “Are all the angels as pretty as you?” I asked. His shy smile and shrug only elevated his hotness. “Just you then. Okay, now the memory thing. Do Danny.”
“Hey!” Danny protested.
“Fine, do me then. Magic Eraser that time I walked in on Danny playing rub-a-dub rub in the hotel tub. That’s three seconds I’d like to lose.”
Danny groaned. “I told you I was loofa-ing my feet.”
“Please repeat what you just said in your head and tell me how that’s better?”
Danny took a second. “Whatever, you know I’d just gotten new boots. I don’t need to be embarrassed for trying to take care of myself.” I smiled. “Not that kind of care!” Danny stood. “You know what—fine! Do me. Please erase the last two minutes of my life.”
“Are you sure?” Michael asked.
“I’m positive. Make me forget it all. Please!”
“I lick every Oreo in the pack as soon as you buy them,” I rushed to say just before Danny’s eyes went blank and blinky. He shook his head. “Sorry, I missed that, how many angels did you say were here?”
“Oh my god,” I happy clapped. “This is going to be awesome!”
“No. Whatever you’re thinking right now, just no,” Ashlyn reprimanded.
“And by no, you mean only in the case of …?”
“Never,” Ashlyn clarified. “Only in the case of never.”
“Never being code word for …?”
“Code for you will absolutely under no circumstances ask, trick, or bribe Michael into using his gift for evil.” She held up a hand to stop my next words. “Or for your personal amusement.”
“How about merely for slightly devious and for the amusement of other people?”
In answer, Ashlyn stood. “We’re going to be late to your parents’ house.”
I stood as well. “I’ll take that as a maybe then.”
Five minutes later, we were all packed in Woody and headed to Mom and Dad’s. I’ll be honest. I had been a little procrastinate-y. I mean, I was super interested in the glamour and mind swipe thing, but the guest list had grown from nine and a hell hound to thirteen and a hell hound, as my s
ister, her husband, and two munchkins had been added to the guest list. They only lived forty-five minutes away, so they could make the trip, eat, chat, and still get the girls home in time for school-night rituals. So yeah, thirteen people and a hell hound. All in the same space. Touching elbows. Talking. Don’t get me wrong; I loved them. And I was glad I was going to get to see them. Ya know, because if that pesky apocalypse thing didn’t go well, it could be the last time.
A byproduct of my life with Danny and Norm was that I’d distanced myself from everyone. I’d gotten used to elbow room. Solitude. Quiet. That had changed, of course, when Ashlyn began riding shotgun, but she was hot, got naked with me, and did giggly things to my insides so she was the exception to the rule. Plus, she had an inherent gift of knowing what I needed and when I needed it. A soft kiss. A calming touch. A “Get out of here and go run,” and my personal fav: “I’ll meet ya in the bedroom.”
I looked down at the hand currently caressing my leg. “It will be fine,” she assured me softly, so the other chatterboxes in the back didn’t hear.
“I know.” And honestly, I wasn’t worried about my family accepting what I had to tell them. Sure, there would be some WTFs, but at the end of the day, they’d still love me. Accept me. It was the shit I was going to get for not knowing or trusting that fact years ago. They would have stood by me and Danny and the things we had to do. They would’ve been worried, of course, more than they were already, but they would have supported me, loved me, and accepted me. I gave Ashlyn’s hand a squeeze. “I know,” I repeated.
I parked beside the stack of cars already filling my parents’ drive. I shut off the engine and spun in the seat. “Okay, here’s how this is going to play out.” I pointed at Michael. “Keep the wings buckled up. And no angely holier-than-thou speak. Street speak—remember the movies.”
Michael gave a quick jerk of his head. “’Sup.”
Danny snorted. “Told ya letting him watch Pulp Fiction was a bad idea.”
“Forget street, let’s go more Mayberry sidewalk.” I moved on to Apoc. “No funny tricks from you, little bub. Nada. Understand?” I got a spit bubble in response. Good enough. “Six.” He popped his head up from the far back, “Shrinky dink, normal dog stuff, and table manners. Under—” His super sniffer was activated by the BBQ smells dancing on the air. And he was gone, out the back hatch, don’t ask me how, and he was around the corner of the house, “—stand,” I finished for no reason at all. “Okay, I’ll take the lead on all the apocalypse down-low. Until then, zip it. We are five super normal, super chill—” Something slammed against my side window causing me to jump and nearly hit my head on Woody’s roof. “Fuck me!”